The present invention relates to a toothpicks dispenser which is made up of a top cover, a box embodiment, a bottom board, a holder plate, a pair of pivotal dispensing plane units jointly engaged with the holder plate by a shaft pin and retractably operable by a bias spring. The holder plate and the two symmetric dispensing plane units are integrally housed in the box embodiment which is provided with a rectangular cut at each longitudinal side wall and a flanged top opening with which the top cover is registered. The holder plate of a roof shape is made up of two symmetric oblique planes on which toothpicks are piled up. The two dispensing plane units placed under and in pivotal engagement with the holder plate are provided with a horizontal pressing tab and a vertical toothpick shooting edge on the longitudinal outer side thereof respectively. On a shoulder of each longitudinal side of the box embodiment is disposed a dispensing slot for distribution of an obliquely raised toothpick in each operation after the horizontal press wing tab of each dispensing plane unit is pressed and released wherein a toothpick on the oblique planes of the holder plate will drop into contact with one of the toothpick shooting edges and be popped out of one of the dispensing slot as the downwardly pressed dispensing plane unit retracts by the bias spring.
Conventionally, toothpicks are housed in a tubular container 10, as shown in FIG. 1. A top cover 11 in threaded engagement with the container 10 has a through hole 111 and another rotary cap 12 having an oval opening 121 is rotatably registered with the top cover 11. To dispense a toothpick, the cap 12 is rotated to make the oval opening 121 in alignment with the through hole 111 so as to permit the toothpicks inside the container 10 to be taken out by slightly make the container toppled in an up-side-down manner.
There are several disadvantages associated with such a prior art toothpicks dispensing means, given as below:
1. The top cover 11 with the cap 12 is in threaded engagement with the container 10, and the top cover 11 must be removed to refill the container 10 with toothpicks. Such an operation is tedious and inconvenient.
2. To take one toothpick out of the container 10, the cap 12 on the top cover 11 is rotated to make the oval hole 121 of the cap 12 aligned with the through hole 111 of the top cover 11, and then the container 10 is slightly toppled. The toothpicks are easily excessively dispensed more than what desired in number.
Therefore, the primary object of the present invention is to provide a toothpicks dispenser which adopts a roof-shaped holder plate and two dispensing plane units in pivotal engagement with one another. The toothpicks consecutively accumulated on the holder plate are sequentially dropped into a position when each spring biased dispensing plane unit is pressed down to be dispensed in a slant manner out of one of the slots disposed on a shoulder at each longitudinal side of the box with ease and speed.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a toothpicks dispenser which is equipped with a pair of symmetric dispensing plane units that can be actuated separately or simultaneously to get one or two toothpicks at one time with convenience and speed.